Meal Prepping From The Pantry #5

 

This time I meal prepped a little bit differently.  I made components to future meals rather than entire meals.  First I made myself a loaf of my favorite homemade whole wheat bread.  I was out of bread and had used up my shopping budget plus I had decided I really want to bake my own bread so it is REAL food that I am eating.  The label on a loaf of bread is way too long for my comfort.  I used my bread machine on the dough cycle which freed me up to work on other things until it was time to shape the loaf and let it rise again.

 

After ten minutes in the oven I put them on a rack to cool

While the loaf was on its second rise before it went into the oven I also made a batch of pizza dough in the bread machine.  Once the dough had mixed I let it rest for ten minutes before removing it from the machine and dividing it into four equal portions.  I then rolled out two of them into a small round pizza crust and baked them for ten minutes in the oven at 400° to par bake them.  I then set the crusts on a cooling rack and repeated myself with the rest of the pizza dough.  By the time all four crusts were baked the bread had risen and was ready to go into the oven.

 

Three crusts ready to freeze for the future

A homemade frozen pizza!

After the crusts cooled I topped one of the four with leftovers I had in the refrigerator to make a “take and bake pizza” of my own.  I then carefully slid it into a one gallon Ziploc bag I had labeled with the date.  I then put the other crusts into their own labeled Ziploc bags and stacked them with the pizza on the top and slid them right into the freezer.  I now have four quick and easy pizza options at the ready.

 

It has been a bit of time since I baked my own bread
The bread & the quiche turned out fabulous!

I still had a partial bag of potatoes left in the refrigerator that had been given to me at Easter and I had just purchased a fresh bag on sale.  I took the remainder of the older potatoes, peeled and cut them up and then boiled them in a large pot.  Once they were cooked I mashed them up with butter, milk to be a bit fancy some dried parsley to make a nice big batch of mashed potatoes.  

I mashed the potatoes & added butter, milk & parsley

Whipped to perfection!

I placed the potatoes in smaller freezer containers and once they had completely cooled I added lids I had labeled and put them away in the freezer to have on hand as quick and easy sides for future meals.  All I have to do is thaw and remove the potatoes to a dish to simply reheat them in the microwave next time I want some mashed potatoes with my meal.  The potato peelings went out to the chickens.

 

Par boil for about 5 minutes

Drain

Flash freeze for 30 minutes

Lastly, I peeled and cut up some extra carrots I had and par boiled them for about five minutes before rinsing them in cold water to stop the cooking process.  I then drained them and laid them out on a baking sheet, then placed them into the freezer for about thirty minutes.  Next I removed them to a quart size Ziploc bag I had labeled and then placed them back into the freezer in my veggie bin to wait until I’m ready to use them with a future meal.  I gave the carrot ends to the bunny and the peelings went into the scrap bag I keep in the freezer to make broth with.

 

Yum!

Cooled, labeled & ready to freeze

Ready to go back into the freezer

Celery, onion, carrot scraps + garlic skins after I had pressed it
This will make some delicious & flavorful stock one day

This time I was able to fill in a gap in my pantry by baking a loaf of bread, added some easy pizza options to my freezer and used up a partial bag of potatoes as well as some extra carrots so they didn’t go bad and in the process I’d have some easy side dishes all ready to go.  Once again, no food waste, which is always the goal.  I like it!

 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 130

 

Our weather has been warmer, cooling down quite a bit at night, and for the most part clear and sunny.  The smoke from the summer wildfires has been thinning out and we can see the foothills.  It is very nice to have better air quality once again.  I know we are only mere weeks away from the Fall season cool down and our first frost so I want to take advantage of every warm day we have left.  Last week I began working out in my backyard to get things tidied up and winter ready.  Usually I start at the front and work my way to the backyard, but this year I decided to go in the opposite direction, backyard to front, and see what happens.  I’m hoping to get everything checked off my “to do” list before the bad weather sets in.

 

Pear butter - Yum! 😋

After picking the rest of the pears off of the tree I made a batch of spiced rum pear butter in my large slow cooker.  I haven’t made pear or apple butter in several years.  I put it up in jelly jars as well as some of those cute little four ounce jars to give at Christmas this year.  I’m planning to pair it with a loaf of homemade bread as my gift to my friends since we are pretty much just into consumable gifts these days.  We are all trying not to bring more stuff into our homes as we shift into the Swedish Death Cleaning mindset more and more.  Food gifts are pretty wonderful.

 

After picking all of those pears I filled up a large box and took them into the senior center to share.  I had several people take bags of pears home and it made me feel so good to be able to bless them with some fresh fruit.  I still have quite a few left to enjoy myself and I have to say they are really delicious.  I may go ahead and make a pear pie and invite some friends over to help me eat it.  I haven’t had pear pie in ages.

 

The hummingbirds are gone, have been for a couple of weeks now, so the feeder was removed, cleaned and put away for the season.  I’m sad to see them go, but I know they’ll be back in May and I will get to enjoy them once again.  When they return next year I promise to use a step ladder to hang up the feeder with.

 

The apples this year are amazing!

Wednesday morning I went outside and picked the last of the tomatoes and pulled up all of the plants.  The cooler weather, especially at night, had pretty much stalled any additional growth so it was time.  My tomato garden sure did bless me with abundance this year.  My Golden Delicious apple tree did remarkably well this year and the apples truly are delicious.  I am absolutely thrilled to be able to go outside and pick apples from my very own tree to put up and enjoy in the coming months.  Another blessing to be sure!

 

The show was great!

So was this terrific group of ladies

Later that evening I took a group of seniors to the Idaho Shakespeare Theater and was able to enjoy the performance as well.  It was nice to be able to accompany them and have the bonus of being able to see a live play.  They allow you to bring a picnic if you wish so I packed myself a chicken sandwich on a croissant and enjoyed that while we watched.  The weather was perfect and we had a very nice time.

 

On Thursday I decluttered the patio chairs with their poor sun rotted seats from the backyard deck.  I arranged to have them picked up as part of our bulk trash service.  We are allowed to have up to five items a year hauled off for no additional charge to our regular trash bill which is very nice.  I am quite happy to have those chairs gone now so no one will be at risk of injury.  Especially me!

 

I grabbed the ladder once again and started picking more apples from my tree.  I was able to fill up two of my slow cookers with apple slices and canned six quarts of pie stewed apples that I can either eat as they are or use in a pie or other apple dessert.  While the apples stewed I went back outside and filled up a copy paper box with more apples to take into the senior center when I go into work on Monday.  After taking a bag over to the neighbors I still have loads more apples left on the tree.  I suppose I’ll have more picking to do in the next couple of weeks.  Yet, another blessing!

 

Stewed apples

I had received some birthday money this month so I treated myself to a new bedding set.  I got it on Amazon and it had a coupon offer attached to it so I got the coverlet and two pillow shams for only $32.  I like the new look in my bedroom and I think it goes nicely with my existing thermal drapes on the windows and the contemporary style lamp on my bedside table, which was my goal.  I didn’t want to replace everything this time around so after a lot of thought and some shopping around I was glad to find what I was looking for.  I think it’s pretty and makes for a very nice change.

 

Another busy week is in the books and I’m onto yet another one.  Hope everyone is doing well!

 

This Month's 2024 Extreme Budget Grocery Spending – September

 

After a stellar August and a lot of home canning I began this month in pretty good shape.  I had a little bit of money left last month to rollover and add to my budget and a list of items to work on for the LTFS.  My bumper crop of tomatoes was still producing and my fruit trees were loaded with pears and apples.

 

In my crisper drawer I still had the better part of a two pound bag of carrots, half a large onion, two pounds of potatoes, a small pickling cucumber and my fresh homegrown garlic.  I stopped into Winco one evening on my way home from work for a head of iceberg lettuce and a couple onions as well as some cilantro and two extra cans of green chiles for a canning project and a package of tortillas.

 

Fred Meyer had some good sales on items I wanted to add to my freezer and LTFS.  A ten pack of pork loin chops was on for $10 and low and behold when I went to the meat department to pick some up there was a package on markdown for only $4.50!  I snapped those up!  Mayonnaise and mustards were also on the list and on sale so I picked those up as well as a bag of oranges, also on markdown, and four nectarines on sale for 99¢ a pound.  They were delicious!

 

At Costco I picked up a five pound package of cheddar jack cheese (remarkably I was completely out of cheese) which I divided up into sandwich size Ziploc bags and put away into the freezer.  I also grabbed a carton of cream for my coffees that I like to make.  That pretty much used up the bulk of my monthly budget, but it also held me quite nicely for the first three weeks of the month.

 

Near the end of the month I picked up three pounds of thick sliced bacon on sale for $10 at Fred Meyer and that pretty much took care of the last of my budget with only $1.90 left to rollover and add to next month’s budget.  I spent a total of $61.17 on food and $5.97 on non food items which was for two boxes of canning lids.  My list may not be long this month, but I think it is still pretty darn impressive.

 

 

Are We Headed For A Depression?

 

I’ve heard many people say they are concerned that we are headed for another great depression.  It is more of a feeling they have than anything else.  So what do I think?  Well, I don’t really know for sure, but I do think it is quite possible.  Since the pandemic we’ve been touched by illness, panic and fear, lockdowns, inflation, shortages and soaring housing costs.  Groceries have seen some exceptional price increases, our utility rates have steadily risen and gas has been high for quite a while.  History does have a way of repeating itself.  So what should we do about it?  Everything we can.

 

If we do go into a depression it will be similar in some ways to the last great depression, but also very different other ways as we are a very different generation now.  Our world is overly dependent on technology.  It seems that we take the information we are fed at face value and go about our daily lives without asking many questions.  We continue to vote for the same people again and again, yet we expect different outcomes with how our government is run.  Most people are heavily impacted by what they see on social media.  Scams and scammers are running rampant and hackers are having a field day.  It’s often very hard to know what is safe, or even real, anymore.  We have a tendency to just put up and shut up with whatever comes our way with little to no resistance.  Nobody really likes it, but very few are willing to do are say anything about it.  I think people are afraid.

 

Personally, I believe that to survive a recession or a depression, or just life in general, we must take a giant step back and become far less reliant on all of this technology.  We need to get back to the basics and simplify our lives.  We have too much – too much debt, too much stress, too many health issues, too much stuff, too many worries and fears.  We even weigh too much.  Too much of anything is never a good thing.  We have to seek and find a balance.

 

Most of us rely on someone else to do most everything for us.  So many people have never changes the oil on their cars or even checked the oil and they have no idea how to change a tire.  Instead they take their cars in for an oil change hoping it got done right and call roadside assistance for a flat tire.  Automobiles have become more complicated and computerized making many simple maintenance tasks difficult.  Not impossible, but more difficult.

 

It amazes me how many people cannot cook and prepare a meal.  Many cannot sew enough to replace a button or mend their clothes.  I do see that changing as the popularity of “old fashioned" homemaking is gaining speed, especially on Youtube.  We need to learn and practice these skills and become much more self reliant.  We need to eat better and take better care of ourselves and our health.  We need to be mindful and environmentally friendly consumers instead of mindlessly spending and regularly adding large quantities of waste to the landfills.

 

I am all about following my gut instincts.  If I feel something I have to heed that warning and prepare accordingly.  If I don’t, then I tend to live to regret it.  If you feel something, by all means, act upon it.  I know some people are scared, very scared, to the point that they don’t know what to do.  My advice, do something.  Doing something is always better than sitting by and doing nothing.  Now is a good time to decide what you want, what you need and go after it.  Get yourself squared away.  If you have debt, pay it off.  Make any necessary repairs or upgrades to your home or automobile.  If you need some new socks, buy them.  If stockpiling food makes you feels safe then by all means do that.   It does no good to just sit and worry or fret about something that might happen.  We can survive a depression, if that is what ends up happening, but we’re going to have to make some changes in order to do it.  Change isn’t necessarily a bad thing.

 

If this happens to be a concern you are having please share your thoughts in the comments so we can open up a kind and thoughtful discussion.  As a community we can all help each other.

 

 

Stretching My Food $$ - Pizza

Pizza is one of those things most people love to eat.  Right now it costs a small fortune to buy a pizza at a restaurant of have it delivered.  Even take and bake or frozen pizzas at the grocery stores have gone up in price quite a bit.  To make it at home is super inexpensive and much, much healthier too.

 

My recipe is super simple and doesn't really take very long to make.  You don’t even need to wait for it to rise.  Once it is mixed up, you let it rest for a short time and it is ready to go.  You can mix it up in a bread machine, a stand mixer or completely by hand.

My pizza dough recipe: 

Pizza Dough 

2 cups flour

1 cup whole wheat flour

2 1/2 tsp. yeast

1 tsp. sugar

1/2 tsp. salt

1 Tbs. oil

1 cup hot water

Place ingredients in bread machine pan and start on dough cycle.  Add additional water or flour if needed until dough comes together in a nice smooth ball.  Turn off machine and allow dough to rest 10 minutes.  You can use all white flour if you prefer. 

Buffalo Chicken Pizza

This dough can be divided and frozen if you only need to make one pizza or you want to do some meal prepping.   You might want some sauce on this delicious dough.

Easy Quick Pizza Sauce 

1 8 oz. can tomato sauce

1 clove garlic, crushed

1/2 tsp. dried basil 

In a microwavable bowl combine ingredients and stir to thoroughly combine.  Cover bowl and microwave on high for 1 minute, stir, and repeat.  Spoon 1/4 cup of sauce onto your freshly made pizza crust.

 

Pesto sauce also makes a great pizza sauce as does barbecue, hot wing, even ranch dressing.  I’ve even brushed the crust with olive oil and sprinkled it with garlic powder and dried parsley in place of a sauce.  There are a lot of good options.

 

Sprinkle with your favorite grated cheese: 

Mozzarella

Monterey jack

Cheddar

Parmesan

Provolone

Swiss

Colby 

I personally prefer Monteray Jack cheese, but all of these are great.  Then all you need to do is add your favorite topping and bake in an oven at 450° for 12 to 15 minutes until it is done and the cheese is bubbly.

 

Toppings: 

Crumbled cooked ground sausage, beef, pork, turkey, etc.

Diced cooked ham or chicken

Leftover taco meat

Bacon bits, pepperoni slices, sliced ham or sausage, chorizo, etc.

Peppers

Onions, scallions, chives

Mushrooms

Tomatoes

Pineapple (I know, it’s a controversial subject)

Sliced olives

Zucchini, thinly sliced

 

The list goes on and on and the sky is the limit.  Some of my favorite pizza recipes come from the Pampered Chef website.  I love those creative pizzas I used to make back in the day when I was a consultant and their pizza stones are pretty awesome. 

My Tireless Retirement – Week 129

 

I have spent the past week really tapping into my inner domestic goddess.  I’ve truly been enjoying my home lately.  Even the mundane every day of tidying up, washing dishes, preparing a meal, making my bed, doing laundry and vacuuming the floor fills me up with productive satisfaction.  Once I settle into my chair to relax at the end of the day I look around and my heart swells with an overwhelming sense of joy and accomplishment.  I am very grateful for my home.

 

Outside I’ve continued to harvest pears, tomatoes and even an apple.  Although I’m not much of a gardener I’m thrilled with what I have managed to do this summer.  I canned twelve pints of sliced pears and added them to my LTFS shelves.

 

Last Saturday I spent the day with a friend and we made homemade pizzas, something she had never done before.  She had a great time as did I and we had plenty of leftovers.  I sent her home with quite a bit of pizza as well as a half dozen pint jars of what I’ve canned over the summer.  She was thrilled and I was happy for the opportunity to share.

 

I picked this up on sale at Fred Meyer

I divided up into five vacuum sealed packages for the freezer

While we were making and eating our pizza she and I discussed getting together to do some meal prepping, each of us bringing the ingredients for a couple of meals and then dividing them in half so we are both leaving with a good variety of meals to tuck into our freezers.  It sounds like a good idea to me and a lot of fun too.

 

Baked bread & a quiche from the freezer

Another friend of mine gave me a bag of fresh peaches from her backyard tree.  They are huge and so delicious.  One morning I sliced one and enjoyed it with my homemade granola and homemade yogurt.  I still have a few left to enjoy in the coming week.

 

With the changing temperatures I was ready to turn my oven on.  I baked a loaf of whole wheat bread and I also made up some pizza dough which I divided into four equal portions.  I rolled it out and made four small pizza crusts.  I par baked them and wrapped three of them for the freezer then  took the fourth one and topped it with the leftover pizza sauce, cheese and toppings I had in the refrigerator.  I then wrapped it up and put it away in the freezer as well.  Since I had the oven going I also pulled a frozen quiche from the freezer and baked that too.  My house smelled so good with all of that baking.

 

Meals I Prepared: 

I had some leftover chicken salad I had made the previous week and a croissant which I finished up for supper one evening.  The homemade pizza I made with my friend and all of the leftovers kept me going for a few days as well as the frozen quiche from the freezer I had baked.

 

I pulled out the last container of mushroom gravy and some rice I had in the freezer to thaw and reheat for a couple of meals which I paired with some steamed broccoli.  It was another week of delicious and easy to prepare meals once again.  I also had plenty of fresh fruit to enjoy.

 

I had another tree guy come by and take a look at all of my trees and give me an estimate to do some pruning on the big girl. I really liked this arborist.  They’ll be back in six weeks to give her some love and attention.  I’m so glad to no longer have to worry about that task anymore and to finally get this checked off of my “to do” list.  This particular job is just to big for me to do and although it comes with a hefty bill I am very happy to hand it off to the professionals.

 

I made sure to taste test the bacon

It was definitely a busy week for me.  I worked four days at the senior center and when I wasn’t at work I was busy puttering about the house.  I even managed to check a few more items off of my quarterly housekeeping checklist and realized it is almost time to start a new one.  Oh my gosh!  The final quarter of 2024 begins in a couple weeks.  Where does the time go?!